Frederic Vasseur is taking fan expectations on Ferrari as ‘positive pressure’

Without a doubt, Ferrari are the most iconic Formula 1 team of all time. In addition to this, they’re the most successful F1 team of all time as well. By far, too, having won 16 Constructors’ championships and 15 drivers’ Championships. For a lot of people, when they think of F1, they think of Michael Schumacher at Ferrari. But fame and regard also comes with a lot of pressure, both external and internal. Now that he’s the team principal, Frederic Vasseur will face it head-on.

Things are different, even bigger at Ferrari. Every win and every mistake. Considering they have the status of an almost ‘national team’ of Italy when they win, the nation builds them up. The media will sing their praises. But when they mess up – they’re in for a world of pain. They messed up on quite a few occasions in 2022 and felt the heat. As the team’s public face, Mattia Binotto felt the brunt of it. He resigned at the end of the season after rumors emerged that he could be sacked.

Now, Vasseur is in his place, and will have very high expectations on his shoulders. The target in 2023 is to win. But the Frenchman is not fazed by it. When asked by Autosport how he had been dealing with Ferrari’s internal politics, he said: “I don’t think it’s more difficult than somewhere else. What is true is the passion and the enthusiasm around the team is mega. When we did the launch two weeks ago, you have thousands of tifosi behind the fence, and I’m not sure that is the case anywhere else in the world.”

So far, Vasseur has found the external pressure ‘okay’. He said: “Now, the question is if it’s good pressure, a kind of motivation, and I’m taking it like this, or if it’s something that will restrain the development?  Honestly, I think that it’s positive. When you are doing this, you want to have this [pressure]. You can’t do a show or a sport and try to be not exposed.  We know perfectly that in F1 you will have fans who will have expectations, and probably in Italy it’s a bit bigger than somewhere else. But so far, it’s okay.”

Read More: 2023 Ferrari car’s tire degradation appears worse than reality: Reports

Frederic Vasseur knows he doesn’t have to ‘change everything’ at Ferrari

2022 was certainly disappointing for Ferrari, but it’s not as if it was all bad. They won two out of the first three races, and two others in the middle of the season. It was quite a step up from 2020 and 2021. For the first half of the season, they were usually the fastest or level with Red Bull on car performance. They don’t need to change everything, even if they have to work on reliability and better communication on the pit wall.

Frederic Vasseur is aware of that. He said: “We have to take it with humility. The team was second in the world championship last year, and I don’t have to join and change everything. We have to do it step-by-step. I need to digest tonnes of things the last couple of weeks. We will do small changes in the next few weeks because we have to improve. But it’s not linked to Fred Vasseur or Ferrari. It’s the DNA of our business.”

Of course, he’s already made a few changes. There has been a reshuffling of the strategy team. The most major change has been Iñaki Rueda, head of sporting and race strategy, being sent back to the factory. His place on the pit wall as the Strategy Director will be taken by Ravin Jain. It’ll be interesting to see if this new approach bears fruit for Ferrari. Last season, along with Binotto, Rueda was the most-maligned major figure on the team.

In case you missed it:

• “He’s in a good place,” Gunther Steiner reckons Mattia Binotto can bounce back from his Ferrari exit
• “Faster than Ferrari,” Fernando Alonso makes a bold statement on Aston Martin ahead of the Bahrain GP

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